skymuffins | [Sept. 1/11] The Dining Hall, Early Evening

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[Sept. 1/11] The Dining Hall, Early Evening

Supper at Thrones Academy was always quieter at the end of the year.

At the very beginning of the year, it was different. Older students found their tables—some claimed in years past, others rearranging themselves to suit how friendships had changed over the course of the two month long holiday all returning students had endured—while the newest class, the ninth graders, congregated at the tables set up for them. In the weeks that followed they would realize that they were allowed to move to other tables. And they would realize that no one wished them to do so.

For now, they were thoroughly engrossed in talking to those of their year and the rest of the grades were varying degrees of relieved about it. The new kids did not notice the way that the Headmistress, Lenore Aubrey, did not at them even once for all that their tables were closest to her.

The older students knew why.

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"My condolences," Aron said breezily, leaning back in his chair. "I do hope you get the nurse to check your hearing. Presumably you'll need it."

... Apparently he'd used up his store of politeness for the day already. Oh well, Aron thought, the idiot he was talking to looked like he could stand being insulted a few times.

Condolences, now? Oh yeah. This Aron guy was definitely gay.

"Right. Look, pal, you're not going to impress anybody around here talking like you just stayed up all night reading a thesaurus. Kinda just makes you look like a douche, you know?"

Liam's advanced vocabulary. Fear it.

"Simply because your vocabulary has scarcely evolved beyond 'point and grunt' does not mean that the rest of us must lower ourselves to your level." Aron's eyes glittered with dark amusement. "Indeed, you could even say this is a chance for you to better yourself. Reach unprecedented degrees of cognizance and stun us all with the true verisimilitude of your perspicacity."

See, now he was abusing his vocabulary.

Hey! Liam knew what perspicacity was! They'd used it on the Simpsons that one time!

"Do you really want me to show you my verisimilitude?"

That word, however, he didn't know the meaning of.

Aron arched an eyebrow expressively.

"If your idea of verisimilitude involves teaching me a lesson," Aron replied. "Then good luck. I'm sure the Headmistress will be delighted!"

When she was sitting perhaps fifteen feet away, absolutely.

"You're kidding, right? She hasn't even looked our way, yet. I'm pretty sure I could clean your clock right here at the table, and nobody would so much as glance."

Yes, he had been thinking about the logistics of this. After all, Liam was the sort of person who liked being noticed. The practised care that the faculty was putting into not acknowledging their presence was unsettling him, just a bit. Not that he'd admit it.

But he did see it.

"They'd stop a fight," Aron said dismissively. "They just don't want to know us."

The things you learnt when your father was a mage. Nothing good about this school, that was for sure.

He grinned dangerously. "And I'm not so easy to take out as all of that."

"Yeah, I bet you're not." Liam? So not convinced. "You probably got all that upper body strength by hauling dictionaries around, huh?"

He shook his head and started fiddling with his fork on the table. Ugh. Everyone here had something to prove.

"So, you know all about this place, Einstein?"

"No one knows everything about it," he said flippantly. "But I know more than you."

In likely every aspect.

Man. And Liam thought that he was overcompensating for something. This guy was acting like he'd won the crappy stone lottery and he was insecure about having the smallest dick in the locker room to boot.

"And you're gonna, what, lord that over us for the next eight years?"

See how totally impressed Liam was by all of buddy's inside information. Oh yeah.

"No," Aron said easily. "I am perfectly amendable to helping out some people."

Who weren't the idiot he'd sat beside. Which Aron thought was perfectly clear.

"Right. People who use twelve-syllable words when they excuse themselves to go take a piss," Liam grumbled, giving his head a shake. "Keep it classy, Prep-boy."

Liam was totally going to wait until this guy's attention was elsewhere so that he could spit in Aron's mashed potatoes.

"You haven't asked," Aron said pointedly, at the grumbling. "And insults are hardly a way to encourage me to help in any way."

If Liam did anything to his food, he was going to find himself on the floor. Aron wasn't amazing at telekinesis, but he'd had a summer to practice very little things under the eye of someone who knew how to work it, and Aron was utterly certain he could send Liam's chair crashing to the ground in a heartbeat.

And then Liam would have to get up and punch Aron in the mouth with his healing fist of joy.

As you do.

"Okay. So, how do you know so much about this place, then?"

The insult wasn't actually said this time, but there was certainly a 'Know-it-all' implied there. Strongly.

"I'm guessing you're not asking about the history," Aron said dryly, and fully tempted to give him only the history. "More practically: don't try talking to people other than this group until we're in the next grade. This school is top-notch at ignoring those beneath them."

Which he thought was a bit ridiculous, but his father had said it over and over.

Yeah, even someone like Liam could gather that there was something a little amiss about a setup like that. It explained a little about why the headmistress hadn't so much as looked their way, but it didn't exactly answer any questions, either.

"... What? Seriously?" And even Liam could drop the machismo for a moment when something struck him as seriously amiss. "But this is our... uh... our formative year, or whatever. Why the hell would they just spend the whole damn year acting like we're not even here?"

"The end of the year examinations that the Headmistress mentioned earlier are supposed to be deadly tough," Aron said, flicking at a minuscule bit of dust on his pants. "Apparently, a lot of ninth graders don't make it to grade ten. Lots of flunk outs, around here."

Liam raised an eyebrow like that, looking at the rest of the people gathered in the cafeteria.

"That would explain why we're about a third of the whole student population," he grunted, trying to sound gruff enough to not come off as actually being good at math. "How the hell do they expect anyone to pass if they don't even have the time of day to make sure people can hack it, though?"

A beat.

"Not that I'm worried."

Because, really.

"Of course not," Aron said. "None of us are."

Which was true enough considering the amount of laughter and talking that was going on around them. Even those who were less than pleased to be at the school didn't look worried right now.

"It's creepy," he added, raising one hand to point subtly at a girl on the other side of their table. "She's got a big brother here and he ignored her earlier when she tried to say something to him. Maybe they're not supposed to talk to us, but that's weird."

"What? Really?" Liam's lip curled back a little. Okay, that just went beyond creepy right along into the realm of...

Of...

Of something worse than creepy, that's what.

"You don't just stop being family to someone. Maybe her brother's just a dick with something to prove in front of all his little school buddies." Never mind that her brother was obviously an upperclassman, and all. "It isn't cool to have your little sister to tag along, or something."

"Tagging along maybe," Aron conceded. "But to say hello after not seeing each other for years?"

He watched as the doors opened to reveal servants with their food. "I don't like it. Maybe he is just a--a dick, but how many of the students here are siblings, I wonder."

"Always did hear things about how sometimes it ran in the family," Liam allowed. "There was some guy flying off at the mouth earlier about how his sister came here, before, but he hasn't been able to find her here. Not sitting at any of the tables in here or nothing. Me, I don't have to worry about any of that crap. This place is a clean slate, for me."

The first in what was probably going to be a short line of Walsh boys with powers, because one way or another, he wasn't exactly gunning for kids in his future.

"A really creepy clean slate."

"It does run in families." Really, Aron was living proof. "Though my father was not pleased that I'd tested positive to having magic."

He'd acted liked it was the end of the world or something. Aron still wasn't sure what to make of that, but it hurt a bit to know his father hadn't wanted him to go the same path he had.

"I wonder if we're allowed to see the enrolment records?"

"Hey, if you can get the teachers to notice you long enough for you to get your hands on them, I'm not going to stop you from trying," Liam grunted. "It's your funeral, man."

And Liam wasn't even the school's clairvoyant. Wild.

"Oh," Aron said airily. "I wasn't thinking of asking for them." Not when already he could guess that getting a teacher's attention would be harder than finding a needle in a haystack.

"Aren't you curious to see what the flunk out rate is? And where is that kid's sister if she's not here and hasn't been home?"

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